Kukla's Korner Hockey

U.S. hockey fans will have to rely on regional cable outlets for full, live coverage Friday of the NHL draft lottery.
The event will determine the entire 30-team draft order as well as which club has won the right to draft 17-year-old Canadian juniors phenom Sidney Crosby.
While people up north can turn to TSN -- Canada's version of ESPN -- to see NHL commissioner Gary Bettman open the envelopes, American viewers will have to live in the right areas of the nation or settle for bits and pieces of news.
Cable outlets Altitude, in Denver, Comcast Sports Net in Chicago, the Mid-Atlantic area, and Philadelphia, and New York's MSG Network will show TSN's telecast in their viewing areas.
ESPN, which last month decided not to pick up a $60-million option to broadcast hockey games next season, also passed on the chance to show the lottery in full.
"We have ongoing conversations with the NHL on a number of different topics," ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said. "It was expressed from our end that this was not something we were interested in televising.
"It never went any further than that."